RR 309 Ramping Up on Existing Projects

Ramping Up on Existing Projects

On today's episode, Charles, David, Brian, and Jason discuss Ramping Up on Existing Projects.Are you engaged in new projects but challenged on how to handle people, processes, and problems you just encountered? Tune in to learn different strategies that will get you out of the maze!

Possible Problems on the First Day

When you join a new project, you would feel alienated from what's going on. The challenges you will probably run into on your first day are new code base, new people to work with, and new methods. Not knowing who the stakeholders are, you may freak out, as everyone that surrounds you is not familiar.

Regardless if it's your first or fifteenth job, being part of an unknown community is terrifying. However, these setbacks open opportunities for you to learn things you have not come across with and build fresh relationships with colleagues. You experience these by looking for one small win you are capable of finishing in less than a month.

Innovative Strategies

One strategy Chuck prefers doing is getting a churn report on the repository. It leads you to know which files change the most often. In the Git repository, Ruby has this gem which does the static analysis for you. Once you’ve understand everything, you’d get to know what happens next.

When something seems vague, he figures it out by looking for tests for those classes. However, he writes them when tests are unavailable. He finds ways to determine where the boundaries are. To know what he’s dealing with, he reverts the changes in Git or put them in his own branch.

Resistance Within the Team

Resistance is often uncommon when it comes to adding tests or a repository. The reasons clients often make why they avoid tests are because they don’t want to pay more and spend time on it. Generally, no difference occurs when it adds overhead to the test suite because the amount isn’t enough.

“I find it pretty easy to write a feature and tack some tests under that branch. Whether or not the tests are relevant to that feature, that's fine. I don't think I really have encountered resistance to that kind of thing.” – David Kimura

The idea of writing some tests for the sake of understanding some code it is not really advisable, but it’s still helpful. The process begins with the developer writing a feature for a client, and he goes through the Q &A team. Tests are conducted again before things are being deployed.

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